Arti musices, Vol. 45 No. 1, 2014.
Original scientific paper
The Mystery of Music
Dalibor Davidović
orcid.org/0000-0001-8675-0512
; Music academy, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In the philosophical writings of Ivan Focht (Sarajevo, 1927 — Zagreb, 1992) the phrase "mystery of music" (tajna glazbe) plays a significant role. As a starting point for the discussion of its meanings in the following article, a detailed reading of Focht’s writings on art, notably of his book Contemporary Aesthetics of Music (Savremena estetika muzike, 1980), is undertaken. In this collection of portraits of contemporary theorists, who significantly contributed to the aesthetics of music, Focht judges their positions according to their implicit stance toward Hegel’s definition of art as the "sensuous shining of the idea", which in his opinion represents the heart of aesthetics as a discipline and at the same time has devastating consequences for the art itself.
Reading of Focht’s earlier writings reveals that his search for the "mystery of music" was marked from the very beginning by a twofold experience: on one side by the figure of the "end of art" imposed on art by aesthetics (Focht’s habilitation theses, published in 1961, was explicitly dedicated to "Hegel’s doctrine on the end of art"), a figure whose echo Focht found in the proclamations of socialist realism in art, actual in the postwar years in socialist Yugoslavia, and on the other by the experience of modern art, including modern music. In order to respond to the figure of the "end of art" and at the same time to the experience of modern music, Focht’s thoughts on the "mystery of music" move rhythmically, switching between his attention to the "unheard tone" in the notions imposed upon music by aesthetics, and his efforts to determine music ontologically through the category of possibility.
Keywords
Aesthetics of music; metaphysics of music; mycology; Jewishness; strangeness; apocalypse; silence
Hrčak ID:
127436
URI
Publication date:
20.5.2014.
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